


music is her religion

by dazedream



Series: music is her religion [1]
Category: CLAMP - Works, Cardcaptor Sakura, Tokyo Babylon
Genre: Alternate Universe, CLAMPfemslash, Established Relationship, F/F, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-18
Updated: 2013-10-18
Packaged: 2017-12-29 18:40:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,070
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1008717
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dazedream/pseuds/dazedream
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tomoyo loves to sing, and Hokuto loves to listen.</p><p>(Written for Day One - Music AU of the CLAMP Femslash Fest)</p>
            </blockquote>





	music is her religion

**Author's Note:**

> I'm super sorry if there are any glaring errors in this, I have literally looked at it too much for it to make any sense to me now.
> 
> Title from a quote by Jimi Hendrix, tweaked to suit my purposes.

Hokuto knocks once on the door, and upon receiving no answer tentatively slides it open. Kendappa-sensei had promised them music room five would be free today, but the last time she had said that was the time the entire junior section of the school girls’ choir, Tomoyo included, had found her and the tall, dark-haired phys-ed teacher making out against one of the desks. Tomoyo had remained unruffled as ever, only noting with her usual serenity that the gold and blue ornaments Kendappa-sensei had been wearing in her hair set her dark locks off beautifully, and that she rather suspected they had been a gift from Souma-sensei – who after all did have very good taste. The ‘in women as well’ was left implied, as it was not Tomoyo’s nature to intrude into the private lives of their teachers, even when they were laid bare and writhing on a desk in front of her.

She peers out of the window as she drops her schoolbag by the foot of the piano stool, hitting the floor with the distinctive _thump_ of cloth-covered books. There is a group of boys playing basketball in the courtyard below, as well as small scattered groups of people who have chosen to take their lunch outside while the weather remains sunny. A gust of wind blows the first bronzed leaves of autumn past the window, sending them swirling down over the heads of the students below. She has never liked the colour bronze much on herself, but there are myriads of other gorgeous fall-leaf colours, and she’s dying to make a dress (for herself or Tomoyo, she can’t decide) that captures that feel of autumn, of turning leaves, floating on a breeze. She’s thinking velvet for the bodice, but can’t quite decide on what to make the skirt out from – it has to be something light, something that that will flare out if she decides to spin around, but she also wants to recreate the crinkled texture of the dry leaves, and she hasn’t quite figured out how to do that yet. She will, though, it’s only a matter of time. It only ever is.

She can hear faint cheers and groans from those watching the impromptu basketball match, and the sounds make her smile to herself as she turns away from the window, shrugging off her blazer and shaking it out once before crossing the room to hang it on one of the large plastic coat-hooks that line the wall of the room adjacent to the corridor. That done, she loosens her striped tie (school uniforms, _ugh_ ) and undoes the top button of her blouse, returning to the piano. The afternoon sunlight pouring in through the windows glints off the piano lid as she lifts it, sending shafts of light sliding across the floorboards. She seats herself comfortably on the piano stool, the worn velvet padding sun-warmed beneath her thighs, and starts chasing her fingers up and down the ivory keys in some basic warm-up scales.

That’s how all of this started; with a piano. There has always been a certain affinity between the two of them – Hokuto and Tomoyo have been friends and classmates for years, but there have always been other people they were closer with, other friends they spilled secrets to and lost sleep talking to all night. Both are sociable girls, though, and the necessity of seeing and talking to each other on a regular basis had never been a hardship for them. They have always felt a flash of warmth whenever the thought of the other happened to cross the mind of one, like when you think of a distant but dear relative.

The situation that brought them together, that made them friends and then made them _more_ , is hardly a dramatic one. Though Kendappa-sensei was both proud and fond of one of her best students, she did not have the time to schedule extra practices for Tomoyo with the intensive preparations for her wedding eating up all of her time. The other music teachers were happy to lend a hand from time to time, but they all had their own students to see to and could not commit to extra lessons for the young singer. Tomoyo still had her once-a-week lessons with Kendappa-sensei, at least, and so resigned herself to practicing to the music departments old CDs. It was not in her nature to complain, but when Hokuto overheard her mentioning the situation to a friend of theirs, Hokuto thought she detected a note of upset in the other girl’s voice, and Hokuto has always prided herself on her perceptive nature.

The conversation brought Hokuto to remember the classical piano training she and her brother had as children; she has not had professional lessons in a few years, but there is an old piano in her apartment that she loves to play, and if memory serves her correctly, she was quite good at the instrument. She offers her services, be they of any use at all, to the other girl, because she likes to help her friends and has always felt a particular affinity for Tomoyo (and also because she is a healthy teenaged girl, and finds Miss Daidouji both very attractive and pleasing company, and what is better than spending time with nice pretty people who happen to also share her love of clothes and fashion?).

(Hokuto may also be a little infatuated, but that is strictly between you and me.)

Tomoyo takes her up on the offer quite happily, and they begin to spend their lunchtimes together. Hokuto relearns the feel of smooth ivory beneath her fingers, and Tomoyo adjusts her singing to Hokuto's style of playing.

Hokuto registers the door sliding open in the background, and lifts her fingers from the keys, breaking off mid-scale.

“I hope you weren't waiting for me for too long, Hokuto-chan. I’m very sorry I’m late.” Tomoyo’s apologetic voice floats to Hokuto’s ear, pleasant and musical and sending a heady mix of warmth and want fizzing up and down her spine. She swivels to face the other girl, and _oh_.

Has she _always_ been this beautiful?

Tomoyo’s hair is long and dark, very unlike Hokuto’s, gliding down her back in loose curls, though today it is tied in a long braid, and draped over her right shoulder. There isn’t much Hokuto can do with her own hair on a school day – the school regulations don’t allow hats, no matter how fabulous – so the only accessory Hokuto wears today is a cream lace headband she thought Tomoyo might like. Pathetic, but still. She’s been crushing ridiculously on her classmate since they were in the eighth grade, for fuck’s sake. And even now when they’ve formed some kind of relationship, even now when Hokuto has earned the right to kiss Tomoyo, call her _girlfriend_ , even now the sight of her stops the beat of her heart and steals the breath from her lungs.

“My English class ran late, and then Kasumi-sensei asked me to pick up some photocopies for her from the library, and then the librarian told me their order of sheet music had just come in…”

The sun catches the subtle hints of violet in Tomoyo’s hair, casts a soft golden glow over her alabaster skin. Her cheeks are delicately flushed – presumably she rushed here from wherever she was held up – and there is a rueful set to the sweet curve of her lips. Her chest is rising and falling slightly faster than usual, drawing attention to the small silver brooch pinned to her chest that she normally keeps hidden under her sweater. It’s nothing fancy, just a simple knotwork heart in sterling silver, but it’s what Hokuto gave Tomoyo for their six-month anniversary. The understated design caught her eye from the back of the display window of one of the shops she passes on her route home from school. She walks home with Tomoyo, and had to sneak back later, but it was worth it to see the look on Tomoyo’s face when she opened the gift box. The brooch offsets the shine of her dark hair and the light in her crystalline eyes, and it’s all Hokuto can do to be grateful that she went with the pin instead of the silk underwear she had previously been considering. There are always other anniversaries, after all.

Hokuto clears the silly emotional debris from her throat, enough to reply airily: “I’ve hardly been waiting long at all, Tomoyo-chan. You don’t have to worry so much about things like this.”

Gratitude in those soulful eyes as she takes a sheaf of sheet music from her bag and begins sorting through it, the susurrus of the pages a different sort of music to Hokuto’s ears. 

“I think this is your part, Hokuto-chan,” Tomoyo says, handing over a section of the sheet music. The way her hand brushes and lingers against Hokuto’s is highly distracting, and she has to take a quick sharp breath to recover (which is actually a terrible idea). As it turns out, inhaling a large amount of your increasingly distracting lover’s incredibly appealing perfume (something delicate and floral and ladylike; exactly what she would have thought of Tomoyo) is not at all conducive – in fact quite the opposite – to clearing your head. It takes the lady herself to bring Hokuto out of her daze.

“I’ll take a few minutes to set up; do you want to use that time to figure the piece out?”

Hokuto acquiesces gracefully with the last of her dignity. Tomoyo wanders away, a short distance from the piano to the music stand and starts spreading out her sheet music. Hokuto arranges her fingers in the correct position and sounds out the first few chords carefully. She makes her way through the first lines of the song over and over, until she reckons she’s got the tune and rhythm down, and continues to run through the piece as Tomoyo adjusts the music stand to her match her short stature and begins her vocal warm-up exercises.

A few minutes later, Tomoyo says “Shall we begin?” and the magic starts.

Hokuto thinks she could have fallen in love with Tomoyo for her voice alone, it’s so beautiful. The song they’re doing has a gentle rocking melody, like a lullaby, but there is something sad and lingering to it as well. A kind of melancholy, so beautifully expressed in Tomoyo’s star-shine eyes as she tells the lament of a woman whose brother’s heart has been torn apart by a ruthless murderer. She’s not just singing the song, she’s _living_ it, and it shows in every pore of her skin, every hitch of her shoulders as she takes a breath, every agonised twist of her mouth. Tomoyo’s voice soars over the phrase _‘There is nothing you will let me do to heal you heartbreak/Nothing I can do/Except find the man responsible myself…’_ Hokuto blinks the rapidly-forming tears in her eyes away fiercely, she has a job to do, and she will not stop Tomoyo’s song. Her sweet voice rises and falls over the last haunting notes, and Hokuto plays the song softly until its end.

There is a moment of quiet, and then Tomoyo asks “…so how was it?”

“Wonderful, Tomoyo-chan,” Hokuto responds with alacrity. “I really like this one.”

“Thank-you,” Tomoyo beams. “Do you mind if we do it again? I like this one too, and I’d like to go over that line near the beginning, I’m not sure I hit the notes right…”

She indicates the phrase to Hokuto, and Hokuto starts playing from there. Should it not be impossible, for Tomoyo to have both stunningly good looks and such a beautifully evocative voice? And yet Tomoyo has both, and she is also intelligent and kind and always _genuinely_ _interested_ in what others have to say. She’s sweet-tempered and patient and listens to everything Hokuto says, even if it’s one of her hour-long rants on why cafeteria food will kill you, or how the school _completely unfairly_ refuses to let her wear hats that aren’t the completely ugly school-regulation ones, or the benefits of silk versus satin scarves – and even Subaru tunes her out on those. Tomoyo never minds lending Hokuto shoes and the two of them can talk about clothes for hours on end. She also makes some of the _best fucking cupcakes_ Hokuto has _ever tasted_.

All this and Tomoyo is somehow in love with her too? The two just don’t fit. Hokuto has a healthy sense of self-esteem – a little _too_ healthy, Subaru sometimes mutters, and Sei-chan always nods knowingly at that – but Tomoyo is one of the best people Hokuto’s ever met. Surely there’s someone out there better than Hokuto, more suited to Tomoyo’s perfection?

If there is, Tomoyo evidently hasn’t found them yet, and Hokuto is profoundly grateful for that. And more than happy for things to stay this way.

Tomoyo’s voice trails off, and Hokuto plays the last few bars with a soft smile on her face. She looks up and jolts slightly; Tomoyo has moved from the music stand to lean on her forearms against the piano, and is smiling at Hokuto fondly.

“You’re distracted,” she teases.

Teasing is something Hokuto can do. “Guess who I was thinking of,” she returns flirtatiously.

“Oh, you know I don’t like guessing games,” the other replies, coming around the piano to stand by Hokuto. Something changes almost imperceptibly in her face and her eyes darken a little. “Guess what I’m thinking about.”

“Well you know I _love_ guessing games – mmph!” Tomoyo slides onto Hokuto’s lap, uncaring that the movement rucks her skirt up around her hips. She winds her arms around her girlfriend’s neck and kisses her soundly on the mouth.

More _than more than happy_ , Hokuto thinks, wrapping her arms around Tomoyo’s slender waist in turn. _Borderline ecstatic._

* * *

 

 “I found a beautiful piece in the music section of the library today,” Tomoyo recalls aloud as the two girls pass Chiroru on their way home from school. They duck in to the bakery to buy and split an anpan, pausing on their way out to wave to the bakery’s owner, Ueda-san, who is sweeping fallen leaves off the sidewalk. Tomoyo munches thoughtfully on the sweet roll, chewing and swallowing neatly before continuing. “I took it to Kendappa-sensei and she transposed it into my key for me. It’s quite difficult, but she says if I can find a partner by the end of the week, she’ll work on it with us for the big concert at the end of term.”

“Partner?”

“It’s a duet.”

“Oh.” Hokuto crams her final mouthful of anpan into her mouth, savouring the last hints of red-bean paste as she swallows. “You should ask Karyoubinga from the grade below us to sing with you. Or maybe Suu-chan, although I hear she and Oruha-sensei have already started planning something really _unique_ for this years end-of-term concert…”

“Those are good choices,” Tomoyo agrees with a slight smile. Hokuto is rather busy for several long moments staring ate the faint traces of sticky paste at the corners of Tomoyo’s mouth, and is distracted again just as she opens her mouth to reply by Tomoyo’s small, pink tongue licking the red paste from her mouth in precise movements. It flickers out, then in, then out-and-in again, and leaves a wet shine on her lips that leaves Hokuto warm down to her toes and wanting quite badly. It is supremely unfair that Tomoyo’s unintentional teasing can be this effective on her.

She lifts her eyes to meet Tomoyo’s, which are laughing at her, her entire face filled with affection, and realises that there hasn’t been any speaking for some time. Tomoyo stretches up (Hokuto naturally isn’t much taller than her, but the platform heels she’s wearing today give her a good five inches on her girlfriend) and kisses her lightly on the mouth. Her lips are still sticky, and taste a little of anpan.

“Those are very good choices,” Tomoyo repeats, “but I was thinking of _you_ , Hokuto-chan.”

Surprised: “You were? Why?”

“Remember Sakura-chan’s birthday last year?” Tomoyo asks. “When we went to that karaoke place near Rika-chan’s house?”

“I wore my dark blue dress and a fitted cream jacket with the silver shoes you got me last Christmas,” Hokuto remembers. “Watanuki-kun made Sakura-chan a beautiful cake, and Kazahaya-kun got drunk and threw up on Himawari-chan when we were singing ‘happy birthday’.”

“Himawari-chan was very gracious about it, but that’s not what I was talking about. Remember how we could hardly drag you away from the mic all evening? You loved it, and nobody minded much because you sounded so good, and the birthday girl was too busy staring at Li-kun to notice.”

“They were _so_ _sweet_ together – but what does Sakura-chan’s party have to do with this? I do enjoy singing karaoke, and I may be quite good at it, but I’m hardly a performer. Especially not the type that performs in school concerts.”

Tomoyo studies her with serious blue eyes. “It doesn’t matter that you’ve never performed before. And you know if you get nervous, I’ll be there with you.”

With a silvery laugh and an expansive wave of her hand, Hokuto brushes the statement away. “When am I _ever_ nervous, Tomoyo-chan? Though I do appreciate the sentiment. I’m just wondering why you’d like me to sing the duet with you.”

“I sing best when I’m with you,” Tomoyo says simply.

The effect the sentence has on her is like someone setting off a whole batch of fireworks in her chest – bright and beautiful, bouncing everywhere heedlessly in their joy. Hokuto’s fairly sure she’s blushing, which is terribly embarrassing, but she reaches out and tangles her fingers with Tomoyo’s anyway, hoping that will convey what she cannot put into words. Tomoyo squeezes back, gently, dark eyes filled with understanding. Hokuto’s chest pulses again

She grins brightly at Tomoyo and starts tugging her down the street. “We had better get started, then; we don’t want to let Kendappa-sensei down! Come on, if we take this short-cut we can go home via the music store – do you think we’ll be able to find a CD of the song you’ve chosen? You should come over to my apartment so we can do our homework together and then we can have dinner and listen to the song afterwards…”

**Author's Note:**

> [Tomoyo's pin](http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Silver-Celtic-Open-Lovers-Knot-Work-Heart-Pendant-Necklace-Jewellery-/360687828444), for those interested.


End file.
